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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Technically, they didn't dump alsa, they just stopped supporting it with their pre-built binaries. Firefox itself still works with alsa if you build it with it. And Slackware's Firefox still works perfectly with alsa since it includes the --enable-alsa flag during the ./configure.

Technically, they didn't dump alsa, they just stopped supporting it with their pre-built binaries. Firefox itself still works with alsa if you build it with it. And Slackware's Firefox still works perfectly with alsa since it includes the --enable-alsa flag during the ./configure.

For how long ? They are about to remove the actual ALSA related code in the very near future. I'd better start getting used to it now.

Why would you go through all the trouble of repackaging a Debian package when you can just get Pale Moon from SBo?

Actually, I could, and I often do. To be completely honest, I wanted to try it out. There are plenty of DEB packages out there and not all of them have matching Slackbuild. This one is rather simple, there is no installation script. I should try something more complicated.

It is a thing that I like about Slackware, it is relatively easy to install from both RPM and DEB. Especially if the packages date from roughly the same period as your Slackware version. I have been using Red Hat, Fedora and SUSE in the past, and it was not nearly as simple. I think it is because Slackware installs everything (within reason) that you need by default, so shared libraries and other stuff you might need are often there right from the start.

You can still build Firefox with ALSA and we're still accepting patches. We're not adding new features to it or trying to keep it working.

And of course they inject more all over the place of the "no-one uses ALSA" and "full of bugs" except ALSA is the subsystem for linux, and pulseaudio uses that. It's sounds like an excuse not based on a real perspective, but one to fit their development agenda.

Slackware flipping on --enable-alsa would have been pretty pointless if they are removing it. But since it is available, and it has always worked just fine (right everyone??), I think it makes total sense. But if the mozilla maintainers end up blocking patches to their code if some bug is out there or that they broke it purposefully, then I'd question mozilla judgement and future use of their browsers. In fact, I've seen recently a couple examples in the corporate space that firefox has been dropped, saying 'DO NOT USE -- it won't work', and to use a supported browser, Chrome, Edge, or Safari. And I confirmed it. That is not a good sign. Pale-moon is unlikely to get anywhere, given where they came from, I'm sorry to say. But there is a sore need for a browser to fill firefox's place if mozilla starts to go under.

I've searched around a bit. They said that ALSA related code is unmaintained, so it will conflict with something, sooner or later. Or it won't work with later versions of ALSA.

I had a lot of problems FF video playback problems until 45ESR, and I often needed Chromium to watch HD movies. It was much before these ALSA issues. So the idea of replacing Firefox is not new to me.

Early Mozilla browser started much worse than Pale Moon. They had ton of untidy code inherited from Netscape, it was sluggish and needed a lot of memory to run. However, they created a decent browser in the end.

When Firefox started (it was called Phoenix, then Firebird) from fresh code, it was barely usable. Firefox 1.0 was first acceptable version, although it had glitches. People were saying it had no chance, because it was not IE compatible and did not support Microsoft specific features.

Pale moon was just an optimized Firefox build with good old interface for a long time. At some point they decided to fork from Firefox, and it was not so long ago. They are getting better with each release.

And of course they inject more all over the place of the "no-one uses ALSA" and "full of bugs" except ALSA is the subsystem for linux, and pulseaudio uses that. It's sounds like an excuse not based on a real perspective, but one to fit their development agenda.

That's not what they're saying. From the comment your linked to (emphasis mine):

Quote:

There were too many bugs in the ALSA backend and too few people using it. Pulse Audio does a good job of isolating us from ALSA idiosyncracies and we don't want to duplicate their ASLA debugging effort.

What they're saying is that Firefox ALSA backend (not ALSA the Linux subsystem) is buggy in its current state and that not many people in their userbase use it. The second part (not many people using ALSA backend) seems very likely because most major Linux distros ship PulseAudio these days. They also say that writing code for ALSA the Linux subsystem is hard, and that's another reason why they prefer PulseAudio.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the3dfxdude

In fact, I've seen recently a couple examples in the corporate space that firefox has been dropped, saying 'DO NOT USE -- it won't work', and to use a supported browser, Chrome, Edge, or Safari. And I confirmed it. That is not a good sign.

Supported by whom? By some lazy vendor who only tests with browsers they claim are supported?

When Firefox started (it was called Phoenix, then Firebird) from fresh code, it was barely usable. Firefox 1.0 was first acceptable version, although it had glitches. People were saying it had no chance, because it was not IE compatible and did not support Microsoft specific features.

Pale moon was just an optimized Firefox build with good old interface for a long time. At some point they decided to fork from Firefox, and it was not so long ago. They are getting better with each release.

The web in 2002 (the year Firefox was first released) was so much simpler than the web now.

I wonder what API is Firefox 57 going to use in order to run Flash content. Is it still going to be NPAPI or something else ? If Firefox drops NPAPI, Adobe will, almost certainly, drop NPAPI Flash plugin. And that is what Pale Moon is using at the moment.

There was a Freshplayer plugin which allowed Firefox to run Pepperflash, a possible alternative.

They are cutting corners ever since Google stopped supporting them financially. I suppose they lack resources.

I don't know, but gradually rewriting their browser to be fully multiprocess (Electrolysis) and modernizing their web engine to utilize multiple CPU cores and GPU offloading (Quantum), while doing this in new programming language (Rust) which they're funding development of, doesn't sound like lacking resources to me. Considering that Linux is not the most used platform they're targeting and that majority of users on that platform are using PulseAudio, it looks to me that they're simply spending their resources wisely.

I don't know, but gradually rewriting their browser to be fully multiprocess (Electrolysis) and modernizing their web engine to utilize multiple CPU cores and GPU offloading (Quantum), while doing this in new programming language (Rust) which they're funding development of, doesn't sound like lacking resources to me. Considering that Linux is not the most used platform they're targeting and that majority of users on that platform are using PulseAudio, it looks to me that they're simply spending their resources wisely.

Well, this is a free country, at least where I am posting from. Mozilla is free to do whatever they believe to be the best for them.

I, on the other hand, will surely do what is best for me. That is Vivaldi, which is very configurable and does everything right and Pale Moon which offers "outdated" interface which I like. Firefox does not have anything to offer for me any more, and I don't see why would I waste my time on it. If they shut down the project, I'd probably learn about it from the newspapers.

That's not what they're saying. From the comment your linked to (emphasis mine):

What they're saying is that Firefox ALSA backend (not ALSA the Linux subsystem) is buggy in its current state and that not many people in their userbase use it. The second part (not many people using ALSA backend) seems very likely because most major Linux distros ship PulseAudio these days. They also say that writing code for ALSA the Linux subsystem is hard, and that's another reason why they prefer PulseAudio.

I never said they were speaking of the ALSA subsystem solely either. My comments are about their decision not to support a mature standard available everywhere, one even pulseaudio uses, that they used themselves for years.

Thanks for that proper response, much better than just nit-picking. I don't know about the patch, but you made me curious about how that might get done. Cheers.

I did separate searches in the source code for both "moonchild" and "productions" separately, but unfortunately I didn't turn up anything that seemed to reference the .moonchild productions directory. It would take some digging to find out how it's set.

Pale Moon looks like good old Firefox 3.x, runs considerably faster (maybe not page rendering, but old GTK2 interface is very fast). However there seems to be some problems which rarely happen and difficult to reproduce. For example, I was watching movie the other they, and suddenly video stopped at one frame, while audio continued. Closed the browser and started again, everything is fine. Those problems are not serious enough to prevent you from using the browser. Pale Moon does not support DRM, deliberately.

Same rare experience with continuing audio while video is shut down, waiting a while or restarting helps, but this is just a minor issue for me.

Concerning speed, the difference between FF and PM is clear. Obviously, if you're using latest HW you may not notice. I'm using repackaged PM binaries on 14.1 and haven't had a single crash in 2 months.

I'm generally disappointed by what I consider a devolution in web browsing experience where website development has turned into careless integration of zillions of add-ons (often for the most simplistic tasks) into a single long vertical page to cater to mobile users. The result are sparsely populated pages taking ridiculous amounts of CPU cycles to render a few words. Here PM often does a good job on slower HW.